People
keep asking me how to get their work
shown or sold. It's a common question, and this page provides many answers
and directions. Some that I know,
others
from DallasArtsRevue readers.

DallasArtsRevue tracks Dallas galleries,
with contact information, who to talk to, location, open times, etc. on
our Gallery Information
Page with other art spaces and other kinds of information linked on our Resources
Index.

As always, however, artists still
have to dotheir own due diligence. DallasArtsRevue
and others provide the information. What you do with it is up to you.
We can't and won't do it for you.

The venue matters, but not much. A beginning
is a beginning. The idea is to get you started doing this important part
of being an artist.

The longer you've been
doing it, the pickier you can get — about where you show— whose
walls and with which artists. In the beginning most of that doesn't
matter. Your goal is to get your work seen by as many people
as possible.

Remember

The
primary purpose
of showing your work
is showing your
work.

Selling
it might come later.

Starting showing means you'll get chances to
learn more about the process of presenting your work. Not starting means
not learning and not progressing. If by chance you sell some work,
okay, but keep
showing it anyway.

Then make some new art and show that. Don't
keep showing the same old stuff. Keep making more. (If you can't make
any more. Forget this artist thing.) Show the work that makes everybody
else happy, of course. But show the stuff
that
makes
you
happy,
too.

Especially
show the work that scares you silly. That's when you're getting
at your unique vision. Your craft. Your reason for making — and showing
— art.

The reason we are artists
is to share our
visions. Everybody's vision is different. If nobody sees them, our
visions go unshared. Nobody learns from us and our work. We contribute
not.

Later,
when (if) you sign up with a gallery, which
one matters. But at first, all you
need is
to get shown. Any forum will do.

Having your work in someone
else's home, can be a start, albeit a less assertive, less rewarding one.
Be willing to trade or give your work —
or smaller, quicker versions — as gifts. Having one somebody else
out there talking about your work is better than you mumbling in the darkness.

But more people is better.

Only a few of them will respond to your
art and/or to you, and those are the ones who will help carry you on
to the next steps. To attract those precious few you gotta brave it
out and show what you do to a lot of different people.

Following are some of the ways to
start getting your art out to more appreciators:

Art
clubs. There's one in every urban and sub-urban
area. They mean well but are sometimes led by tethered
minds. If you're any good
at all and not too outré, you'll find your level. Miniature minds,
however, can slice and dice the talented few who aren't earthbound
— our real art stars not yet apparent.

Art Clubs tend to have
cute names and too many rules. But for a lot of young artists (Young has
nothing to do with age.), they're a place to garner both people and art
smarts. They provide exhibition opportunities and feedback, and
they always need help mounting their shows — which experience can
help you show yours, there and later.

But there's real reasons to head for bigger
city art groups. More people. More open minds. More art. More art spaces,
more opportunities and more different ideas of what needs showing. Lots
more people who like to look at art, think about art,
talk about art, teach art and even make the stuff.

Open
shows are easy. Their price is low, and the fact that they have
no jurying or curating or other pontificating floats everybody's
boat. But these events
usually only
occur once a year.

Unless you don't care how
desperate you look, start with just one or two pieces. Choose related
(visually, thematic, hue(s), composition,
technique, something...) work, so people will think you know what you're
doing — even
if you don't. Sign your work legibly, so no matter how they screw up
your I.D on the tag or price list, viewers will know who did it.

After you've ploughed through
a few open shows, you'll figure out how the
art-hangers
display their
opinions by where they put your art. But don't worry, this is just
the beginning of a long trajectory. Save haggles over placement till
you figure out where's best — artists rarely agree.

Donating
your work. If you can find a worthy cause, and the auction actually
benefits artists and their work, you could donate
your work. Before you jump
in thinking you're actually going to get something worthwhile out of it,
however, you should read what
other artists think about donating on our Donate
Your Art? page.

1, 2, 3 ...

There's no correct order
or step by step guide to getting your work shown. Go at this process however
you want — or
think you want — at
your own pace and direction. Use your intuition, because there's often
not an abundance of logic involved. Your guesses, based on the
guidelines
and information on this page, are as good as anybody's. A careful plan
of attack
can be almost as good
as
a pile
of pure
accidents.

If you're a student at a school (grade,
high, prep or college), enter your work in every possible
exhibition and/or competition, local or regional or national, and not
just on-campus. Ignore anybody who counsels otherwise.

Stand around and meet people. Stand there listening
first, then join in the conversation, but don't hog it. If they ask, tell
them about your work. Answer questions. Accept compliments and complaints.
Talk to anyone who will share conversation with you. You never know what
you'll learn or from whom.

It's nice to have a
friend nearby, to take up the slack, so you won't feel stranded
when the crowd moves on.

Accept that getting to show your work in
ever-widening circles is, for awhile, more dependent on the quality
of your networking than the quality
of
your
art. Make friends. Support your friends by going to their shows, and
maybe they'll come to yours and help spread your fame. Other benefits are
less
easy to quantify. It really is more important who you know.
And you never find out who'll be important till it's already
happened.

Galleries are
a whole 'nother topic. They say they
look at slides from new artists, but I wonder...

My guess is that they might if they
already know who you are and their interest has been piqued. I suspect
if they don't, most would just shine you on.

Perhaps the best tip
I've heard came from Angstrom owner David Quadrini who said the best advice
he could give struggling artists is to become the friend of an artist who
already has gallery representation. That counsel seemed ironically and
deeply disturbingly right on.

Who

Following this WHO train of thought brings
us to sharing
studio space.
Bumping into just one other artist every time you go to your
studio or make art is probably worth it (whatever it might
turn out to be). Studio-ing with a bunch of other artists
is worth its
weight
in
gold platted milibnium.

They will insist you join
them on their quest to show everybody's work. You'll see theirs; they'll
see yours; and everybody will talk about it — and everything else — all
the time. You will be amazed how much more art that needs showing you'll
make and how
much you'll learn about making it. Unless you're extra territorial,
settle for a community space at first. You're probably already
closed off in your own little cubby-hole.

Not that everybody gets
along with everybody all the time. There's a lot of ego involved in this
biz, but
sharing studio space can also be an unequaled, built-in support system.

Sure, we learn from web pages, but more often,
we learn from other, more experienced human beings. The biggest
drawback is that studio spaces are not cheap, and there are often space
management
hassles and hidden expenses.

After weeks, months, years in community spaces
or private renta studios, many artists revel in having their own private
studio, usually in or near their home.

Much of the sharing-studio-space advice applies,
to a lesser extent, to workshops, classes and other group activities.

What

What to show is more difficult.

Many
new artists show their same old early hits over and over again. It
feels good to rest on what laurels we have accumulated, but it doesn't
help us grow as artists — or as human beings. I may be an extreme example,
but except for special ocassions, when I show, I like to exhibit
work I've done in the last month — if not in the last week. I know
I won't learn anything new if I keep showing the same old stuff.
I know, because I've tried it. Doing that is lame.

I won't get better as an artist, and I will not,
especially, learn more about who I am and what I am up to. Nor will
I develop a personal style, if I don't push my work every time I
show. It's not only important for our development as artists to keep
pushing the new, it's scary. And that can be a sort of hallmark.
If it scares you to show something, that's exactly
what you should be showing..

Laurels don't last. What's new and exciting one
time, may be warmed over spit the next seven times you show it.

The way we grow as human beings is by being the
who we are when we're not thinking each step ahead but just rush
headlong into the situation. We grow as artists by letting
our art lead the way. By always shoing new work, we get where we're
going as artists much quicker and surer.

Some galleries have annual (or seasonal)
open shows, where anyone who pays, gets in. Many artists get started
in
these. Established artists sometimes show their work in these
venues, too.

500X Open Show each summer. Was $20 per
piece, may be a little more now. Their website is not often updated,
and when it is, they change all the links, so good luck with that. Their
site stays at www.500x.org/

The Fort Worth Community Arts Center's FWCAC Biennial,
formerly called the 39-Hour Show is
open to all with a $5 entry fee. Professionals and amateurs are all invited.
Artwork for the 2006 FWCAC Biennial must be under 36" x 36" x
36" and can only be brought in Wednesday, March
1 from
9 am till 9 pm, through Friday, March 3.
The artists reception will be 6-9 Saturday, March 4.
Volunteers will be needed to help process entries and hang the
artwork. The 2004 exhibit had over 740 artists and was a great community
success. T

Not quite as accessible
as Public Galleries, but many college spaces are open to showing well-organized
exhibitions of groups or individuals. The turnaround time may be months
or even years, but colleges — especially in the Dallas County Community College
District — have carefully organized procedures for proposing
exhibitions anyone may attempt.

Usually you need a formal
proposal — a
paragraph or two explaining what you want to do and who will be involved,
and a CD
or portfolio showing high-resolution photos.
Each gallery director can tell you quickly and easily what they need
from you.

Submit the package in time to be considered
by their committee, then help the director choose the work, hang the show,
maybe talk at the opening (the educational part), and take it down and
have the artists (or just you) pick up their work.

Sounds easy. It's a little more involved than
that, but those are the basics. Many well-known Dallas artists not only
started showing this way, but they continue to show at college campuses.

First, read
a lot of artists' opinions about this risky "opportunity." Many
chairty art auctions are rip-offs for artists. Slowly,
some auctions' policies are developing to protect artists and
even give them a share
of the profits (if desired). However, beginning artists rarely get their
work promoted in charity auctions, which seem to concentrate on ballyhooing
name artists, often has-beens.

The Arlington Museum has significantly
advanced the intelligence of their artists auction operating procedures.

EASL - The art benefit
auction that has the best set-up for donating artists — and whose charity actually
benefits this area's artists — is EASL (Emergency
Artists Support League), but
they have their auctions only about once every two years.

The people who attend EASL auctions
are mostly other artists
— and of the calibre you want to become someday. These are the
folk you'll learn the most from, especially if you [See
what to do at the opening, above.]

DallasArtsRevue has
an Artists'
Opportunities Page listing open and
competitive exhibitions, art-related jobs, open
bids, calls for entry and other art-making and
showing opportunities. It also lists other lists.

We recently attended a first showing by an
artist at a hair salon. She organized it and peppered the wall space
throughout
the building with her work, got a professional to design her postcard and sent them out to her friends and acquaintances. It's nice that she
sold more than enough work to pay for everything.

But having a lot of
comfortable people sitting around eating and drinking and talking
about her art — and thinking about it later, even if they didn't
buy anything, is priceless.

The
Cedars - Of course, you have to live there, but it's a great little
tour.

If you live in North Dallas, it should be easy
to get on the North Dallas Artists' Studio Tour. You
don't need a studio — or talent. Perfect for potters and jewelry
makers. A garage or even a driveway will do. Check out our
story about the 2005 tour for examples of what passes.

This story needs your
input. Email the editor (See "contact us" at the top of all our pages)
to add your knowledge, experience and opinions to this story.
Pen names are acceptable. Please note if you don't want your real name used.

J R:

(This is a big subject that I think about
a lot. The advice and suggestions others gave me before I started
showing my work in
galleries was invaluable to me, and I believe it's very important to
pass that kind of help on to everyone who follows.

Beginning with
this
message, I'd like both to add to what you've already posted, but then
to respond in the future in a more thoughtful way to some other points,
so I may write back several times if that's okay. For now, here's
something I believe is very important to address.)

[Of course, it's okay.]

Possibly the single
most important first step I took in getting my work
shown was investing in good photography. I truly believe it has been
a
crucial factor in my work being accepted into shows, and in getting my
foot in the door with galleries. Good photography can make your art
look its best — in my case sometimes better than it really is,
I think—
and bad photography can sabotage your best efforts.

In the past six
months alone, I've had publishers request images of my work for at
least three different magazines and three different books. These people
didn't really care anything about my resume, where my art has been
shown or if any of it has sold.

They contacted me because
they liked my
work based solely on how it looked in photographs (72 dpi jpegs on the
internet at that, not the best way to view great photographs, but even
more challenging to poor photography). I seriously doubt they'd have
had any interest in it whatsoever if I'd been using images that weren't
really good. (Interesting how all this also relates somewhat to your
Eat Art 7 series, "Should
We Donate Art?")

Unfortunately, photography
is somewhat like writing. Many people who
know how to operate a camera think they can shoot art just as many
folks who've graduated high school and know how to diagram a sentence
may think they can write well.

I tried to photograph my own work once,
and the resulting pictures look like crap next to those produced by the
professionals who've been shooting my work ever since. Take any good,
effective photograph of a piece of art, especially three-dimensional
art, and have a knowledgeable art director or photographer tell you
how
much time, effort and equipment it takes to make such an accurate
record of all that beauty, and you'll begin to appreciate how difficult
it is to do.

Even a professional-level photograph of flat,
two-dimensional art is not as easy as it looks.
Realizing of course that you photograph art as part of DARts, I've
found two professional photographers who specialize in shooting art in
Dallas to be unsurpassed in documenting my own work: Steve Beasley,
photographing two-dimensional work, and Harrison Evans, shooting
three-dimensional, are each hard to beat in their own specialties.

When
you're struggling to cover all the expenses involved in an art
career, it can be very tempting to scrimp in this area. But I feel it's
smarter to get in the habit early on of documenting your work
professionally. Once you've established that habit and begun an
effective archive of your work, I think you'll see how essential it is
and rarely think twice about the expense.

Conversely, I believe that
it's human nature to do just the minimum to get by and tell yourself
you'll have your work shot professionally after it's finally paying
for
itself. But this can come back to haunt you, as the stepping stones
that come along early in your career, the opportunities that can lead
to getting in front of gallery owners or museum curators, may be based
on your having a complete collection of good images from the start.